It was going to be quite a task.
“Griffin,” Vickie said.
“What?” He was concentrating on the floor.
“Griffin!”
“What?”
He felt Vickie by him and saw that she had her light shining on the dressmaker’s forms.
He stared at them...and saw canvas and resin and metal. Then he realized that in the middle of the headless mannequins was one with a head.
She was propped up on a metal towel rack, so close in with the dummies that she seemed a part of them; many were draped in swatches of fabric and seemed to blend haphazardly into one another.
But Liza was there, her head hanging down, her arms propped around the rack as if she were a scarecrow. There was no way to tell if she had been set there or if she had come to the basement herself, running and scared, and got caught up on the rack.
“My God!” Griffin breathed.
He hurried to her, hastily pushing dummies out of the way. Vickie had turned to race back up the stairs, dialing 9-1-1 for another ambulance even as she ran.
Griffin slid out the towel rack; like the dress forms, it was on wheels. Things around the rack seemed to spin eerily in the shadowy flashlight beam that was all that illuminated the basement.
He lifted Liza from the rack, knowing that he might be destroying evidence.
But she might be alive.
Life came first. Always. He felt for a pulse; she still had a heartbeat, though she was extremely cold and her pulse was very weak.
Griffin lifted her, hurrying up the stairs and calling for a blanket, even as Jackson and Vickie started running back down the stairs.
“She’s alive, she’s alive!” he cried.
Vickie and Jackson moved out of the way.
“Blankets, blankets...we need blankets,” Vickie cried, hurrying through.
As he reached the kitchen with Liza Harcourt in his arms, Griffin saw that those remaining in the household had gathered around the door to the basement. “Excuse me, excuse me, move, please!” he said, hurrying through the kitchen and then the hall and into the parlor.
He laid her down on the love seat, where, just the night before, Vickie had been hypnotized.
Vickie reached him with blankets.
Adam brought water. He lifted Liza’s head, trying to allow her to drink. Her lips moved; she seemed to take a sip.
“What the hell happened to her?” Monica demanded.
“Where was she?” Jon asked.
“Oh, my God, did she trip and hurt herself?” Lacey asked worriedly.
“I don’t know,” Griffin said. “I just honestly don’t know. But I don’t see where she could have hurt herself. There’s no blood on her that I can find. We’ve called the paramedics. I’m afraid that she’s been drugged, though. She’s limp and nonresponsive, and her pulse is steady but faint.”
“Liza is very dramatic,” Monica noted. “She might have gone down there and screamed to get us all to pay attention to her—and then tripped or fallen.”
They could hear the wail of an ambulance in the distance.
“Thank God! Help—fast,” Adam said. He looked intently at Griffin. Griffin returned his gaze, hiking his shoulders ever so slightly.
Had she run to the basement and tripped?
Unlikely.
Then again...
“She was angry with all of us. Thought we were making fun of her,” Sven said.
“Which we probably were,” Jon muttered.
“And so she ran down to the basement? Right when Alice was out running around the cemetery in a white gown?” Lacey asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s a killer here, and the killer lured her downstairs. She’s alive, and Alice is alive, and one of them is going to be able to tell us something about who is doing all these horrible things. The women both survived, but who knows what was intended,” Monica said.
“Everyone back off!” Carl Morris said wearily. “EMTs are on the way. Go sit down. We need to talk all over again.”
“We’ve talked!” Alistair Malcolm exploded. “We’ve talked and talked. You’ve gone through all our things. We’ve been searched and our privacy violated. I can’t stay here anymore. I have to get out of here. I didn’t want to come. You thought I should come!” he said, pointing a finger at Griffin.
Before anyone could answer, the wail of the ambulance reached the front of the house. Emergency technicians poured in; Griffin told them how he had found her and they’d done nothing but try to give her sips of water and warm her up.
One of the EMTs was on the phone with the hospital, giving a description, receiving instructions. In a matter of minutes, Liza Harcourt was on a gurney and being rushed out.
“I’ll go with her,” Jackson told Griffin. “I’ll fill them in the best I can. And then Angela and I can stand guard at the hospital and let you know the minute anyone wakes up and says anything.”
As Vickie and Griffin stood there watching the ambulance depart, one of Carl Morris’s men came hurrying down the stairs to whisper in his ear.
“No one knows what happened to Liza Harcourt, right?” Morris asked, his tone hard and sarcastic.
Griffin saw that everyone there just stared at him blankly. He watched Carl, irritated, because something was going on and the detective hadn’t looped him in.
“Of course not,” Morris said. He offered them all a grim smile. And then, to Griffin’s surprise, he turned to Alistair Malcolm. “Sir, I’ll need you to come with me for questioning down at the station,” he said.
“What?” Alistair seemed stunned.
Griffin was surprised himself.
“We found a number of suspicious pills in a tiny tin box among your toiletries, sir,” Morris said.
“I take pills for my high blood pressure!” Alistair said. “Which is rising right now, as we speak!”
“What’s in the tin isn’t for blood pressure,” Morris told him. “Please, Mr. Malcolm, just come along with me.”
Alistair began to sputter. The others stared at him. Then backed away.
The man seemed truly bewildered. He pointed a tense finger at Lacey and then at Jon and then at Adam and Monica and on to Sven and Hallie.
“You! One of you. You’re doing this. One of you has done this—not me! I wasn’t even here at first. I didn’t want to be here at all. I came because you were supposed to protect me!” he railed, turning on Griffin.
He was a big man. He walked toward Griffin as if he wanted to hurt him. Making a judgment call, Griffin just stood still. The man was scared. He didn’t know what was going on, and he was lashing out defensively.
Alistair Malcolm stopped in front of Griffin, not touching him, just staring at him—as Griffin had thought he would.
“Mr. Malcolm, you can straighten things out at the station,” he said.
“You betrayed me. You have no idea what you’re doing, and you betrayed me. I didn’t do this.” He spun around to look at Hallie and Sven. “You know the house—you did this. You got Liza down to the cellar and you drugged that idiot girl and she raced out to the cemetery. And you put whatever it is they think that I had, that I was giving people, in my things. You’re the ones who know the house!”
“Please,” Hallie protested softly. “I don’t know if you’re innocent, Mr. Malcolm, but Sven and I—we weren’t even in the restaurant. We haven’t been into town in weeks. Please, we didn’t do anything to you.”
“I’m going to kill you!” Alistair told Griffin.
“At least he’s giving you a warning,” Jon said darkly.
“That’s a federal offense, threatening a federal officer!” Morris warned Alistair. “Sir, if you’ll just come with me...”
Griffin looked hard at the man, who was still stari
ng at him, blaming him. Griffin said flatly, “You’ll be safe. You’ll be out of the house,” he said quietly.
Alistair held his stare for several seconds and something in his expression changed. In that moment, Griffin determined that the man was innocent.
He’d rather be arrested than killed.
Griffin wasn’t sure exactly what Morris had found, and, if he had found strange pills, how he could be sure that they were what had been used to drug Alice or Liza.
But he didn’t think that it was a bad thing for Alistair Malcolm to be out of the mix.
The household was growing smaller at least.
“And you, sir!” Morris said, addressing Jon. “I’ll need to talk to you again, you do realize.”
“I was sleeping!”
“Yes, with Miss Frampton, who is now at the hospital, recovering from a drug overdose,” Morris told him.
“You don’t need to worry. You’ll be able to find me,” Jon said.
“Let’s go,” Morris said to Alistair. He looked at Griffin. “I’ll be in touch.”
“What about us?” Monica asked. “Officer Morris. What about us? Do we have to stay here? Do we go home now?”
“You do what you like,” Morris said. “But...”
“Don’t go far,” Jon said dully. He hesitated, looking bleakly at Griffin. “Don’t leave town. That’s the story, right?”
“You got it. Don’t go far,” Morris said.
“You’re horrible people!” Alistair said. “You’re all horrible people. I am an innocent man. And you’ll pay for not defending me! This is so bad, so ridiculous!”
Detective Morris ignored Malcolm. He nodded to Griffin and walked Alistair Malcolm out the door. The police officer who had come down to talk to him hurried after them, carrying Alistair Malcolm’s big black overnight bag.
For a moment, there was silence in the old Frampton Manor.
Then Jon Skye spoke. “The police have arrested Alistair. Can you tell that to Gary Frampton? Get him to let me see Alice? This hasn’t been fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, so I’ve been told,” Griffin said. “I don’t know what Gary feels, and I don’t know the hospital policy. Alice is only due to be in overnight for observation.”
Jon looked at Lacey Shaw. “This all sucks,” he told her. “Big-time.”
“Yes, Jon. Probably most for Franklin and Brent. They’re dead,” she said. Lacey turned to Griffin. “I’m leaving.”
She turned and headed up the stairs for her things.
“I guess we might want to head back to my house, too,” Monica told Adam.
Adam was thoughtful for a minute. “Griffin, thoughts?”
“I think that, at this moment, we’re probably still deep in the dark. But if Monica wants to head home, that’s fine. Gary, Alice and Liza are at the hospital. Lacey is leaving. Alistair is with the police now. I’m sure it’s fine.”
“You’re all welcome to stay,” Hallie said. “I’m sure that Gary would say that, except for...”
She broke off, wincing as she looked at Jon.
“Well, you will have to speak with Gary, I’m afraid, Jon. He is blaming you for Alice’s condition, so it seems.”
Sven set a protective arm around Hallie’s shoulders.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “You will have to speak with Gary.”
Jon looked at Griffin. “But how could the man still be angry with me? The police just found drugs in Alistair Malcolm’s overnight bag.”
“Well, here’s the thing, Jon,” Vickie said quietly. “How did Alistair get to her to give her the pills?”
“Please! People do fall asleep! Easy,” Jon said. “Alice could have gone downstairs for a drink of water. He could have been down there. I mean, maybe it wasn’t so much a plan as it was a crime of convenience. I love Alice. I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
Griffin’s phone rang; he excused himself to answer it.
On the line was Dr. Myron Hatfield.
“There’s still more details for the lab to discover—as in, sometimes we can even trace the specific chemical makeup of a drug to a certain street vendor—but I wanted to let you and the police know as soon as possible. Both victims received heavy doses of baby-baby. In the case of Brent Whaley, as we know, he suffered a massive heart attack there, nailed into the floor. Franklin Verne died more slowly, a case of alcohol poisoning, considering the condition of his heavily damaged organs due to his years of abuse.”
“Whoever did it had to have known Franklin Verne, or about him—and known about his condition, right? If he had been a strong and healthy man, he wouldn’t have died as he did, correct?” Griffin asked.
“Correct,” Hatfield agreed.
Griffin told him about the two women who had been taken to the hospital. Hatfield agreed to speak with Jackson and the staff there; testing on the afflicted women could possibly tell them, once again, just what the composition of the street drug had been, and where they might possibly find who was manufacturing it—and who was selling it.
As he turned back to the others, they all looked at him anxiously.
“Yes?”
“Anything else?” Lacey asked him.
Griffin shook his head; there was definitely nothing else he was sharing with them at the moment.
“I’m going to the hospital,” Jon said. “I’ll just sit there and wait until Gary Frampton realizes how much I love his daughter.”
“How melodramatic,” Monica said. “Adam?” she asked. “May we leave?”
“Yes, as you wish,” Adam said, looking over at Griffin. “What is your plan?” he asked.
“I believe we have some research to do, Adam. We’ll all keep close what we learn,” he said. He looked at Vickie. “Shall we?” he asked her.
* * *
Hallie and Sven were left alone at Frampton Manor.
Jon had gone to the hospital. Lacey had gone home. Alice, Gary and Liza were still at the hospital, and Adam had taken Monica back to her house.
Vickie had been anxious to speak to Griffin with none of the others present. As soon as the guests were out of the house, he told her about Dr. Myron Hatfield’s call, and then he sent text messages to Jackson and Adam to convey that information to them as well.
She was eager to tell him about her conversation with Poe. “I really believe that this is incredibly important. If we can find out just what did happen to Poe, we’ll know what’s going on here. And this may be ridiculous—another theory to go with dozens of other theories—but what if this man Reynolds just pretended to want to hire Poe? What he really wanted all along was to do the man in. He’d have to do it very carefully, or else be caught and prosecuted for murder. But if you were to do something like what was done to Poe...”
“You mean that he was kidnapped and then set before a rabid dog on purpose?” Griffin asked.
“I think it’s possible,” Vickie said. “This man, Reynolds. We have to be able to find some kind of information on him. If I could just go through archives, see his notes, or...”
She paused, frowning. “Franklin Verne’s laptop,” she said.
“Whoa, wait,” Griffin said. “We just went from Poe archives to Franklin Verne’s computer.”
“Yeah, sorry. Okay, here’s what I’m thinking. Poe was killed because someone was jealous of him—or because someone believed that he received a serious affront from him.”
“From what I understand, he did, at times, insult just about everyone out there.”
“He could be quite a critic,” Vickie agreed. “But I think it was something more serious than that.”
“What? How? In what way?”
“I’m not sure. I mean, it could have been some kind of a perceived ill instead of something real,” Vickie said. “Maybe the killer even thoug
ht that he was being plagiarized. Which, of course, is why I’m thinking the same thing here. The two men who are actually dead were writers—published writers. Franklin Verne had a soaring career—and Brent Whaley had a good one. Franklin was only nominally part of the society, but Brent was in it, and who knows? Perhaps someone was sharing work...and thinks that one of the men stole an idea or even pages of prose or something like that.”
“All right, so where do you want to start? Franklin Verne’s laptop disappeared with him.”
“The police have his home computer—he just didn’t use it for his communications. Maybe he also had a tablet or something else.”
“No phone has been found yet, either,” Griffin reminded her. “I don’t know why—they should have traced it by now.”
“Unless the killer was smart enough to totally destroy it. We do know from the phone company that the same person called the two of them and lured them out. And that same person has been out on the streets—procuring baby-baby.”
“The restaurant,” Vickie said.
“The police have been through it and through it,” Griffin said.
“But maybe they didn’t realize what they should be looking for. There are computers at the restaurant, used for seating and reservations, for orders and bookkeeping.”
“True. Okay. Let’s go see what we can find.”
“Something! We have to try—we’re spinning our wheels here.”
Twenty minutes later, they had driven into town and parked near the Black Bird. There was nothing going on; a patrol officer was watching the street and the restaurant. Griffin produced his credentials, and the officer let them in.
It was eerie being in the empty restaurant. The bar carried a slight scent of drinks gone by, just as the whole of the place retained a slight aroma of food—both good and bad.
“And where did you want to start?” Griffin asked Vickie.
“I don’t know. I guess...room by room.”
“All right. I’ll start with the bar, you look in the gift shop.”
“Devices are so small these days, they could easily be shoved in somewhere under or between things. I’d swear that Franklin Verne carried a laptop or tablet. And we’d figured stolen, but...”